In his well-known book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, John Gray suggests that men and women are as different from each other as people from different planets and offers advice for each to better understand the essential nature of the other. As his title suggests, men are presumed to be more inclined toward action whereas women are governed by emotions: “men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished” (Gray Reference Gray2012, 3). A similar kind of dichotomy exists in the realm of national security, where men have typically assumed the most prominent roles of political leaders, soldiers, and diplomats, while women have been assigned to “comforting” roles as mothers, teachers, nurses, and social workers (Tickner Reference Tickner1992, 27). Feminist international relations (IR) theorists not only criticize the under-representation of women in positions of power but also the tendency for IR scholars to draw almost exclusively on the experiences of men. As Brooke Ackerly and Liza Mügge write in their introduction to this symposium, such an approach fails to convey politics in all its diversity and demonstrates the importance of incorporating gender in political science education.
What follows is a suggestion for incorporating feminist theories into courses on international relations by critically assessing and supplementing a popular textbook, Theories of International Politics and Zombies, in which Daniel Drezner uses a hypothetical zombie apocalypse to illustrate well-known theories of international relations. Footnote 1 His light-hearted use of popular culture appeals to students, who appreciate his concise and witty summaries. Yet Drezner dismisses feminist perspectives on international relations theory in a way that indicates he does not understand them. Consequently, students are trained without any knowledge of feminism and with the impression that they do not need feminism. This article presents feminism as a valuable perspective that should not be left out of classes on international relations and suggests that applying feminist theories and gender analysis to zombie literature and films is an effective way of teaching feminist international relations. Feminist IR theories highlight the gender stereotypes that underlie zombie films—and by extension, discourses on security—but also offer a different view of security that may actually be more effective.
In the approach suggested here, students in courses on international relations are introduced to a number of different theoretical perspectives, beginning with realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Representative scholarly works are assigned that provide students with a sense of the particular arguments and assumptions that characterize each theoretical perspective. Chapters from Drezner’s book are assigned at the end of each section to encourage students to think creatively about how these theories translate into different assessments of political reality (or un-reality, depending how seriously one takes the threat of a zombie outbreak to be!). In addition to discussions of the relevant chapter in Drezner’s book, audiovisual presentations may be assigned for these class days, requiring groups of students to give brief presentations that draw on a cultural text such as a song or a clip from a film or television show and explain how their selection illustrates the particular international relations theory being discussed on that day. Drezner’s use of zombie books and films to evaluate and assess different theories of international politics provides a helpful model for this exercise and often inspires students to bring in other examples of zombie popular culture.
After a brief assessment of dismissiveness of feminist IR, I review possible readings on feminist IR theories, highlighting key arguments and themes from several representative works. The next section of the paper examines how feminist theorists would analyze zombie films and offers an example of feminist critiques of two classic zombie films. The paper ends with some concluding thoughts about the value of integrating feminist IR theories and making them less “scary” by applying them to popular culture material such as zombie films.
All these theories, according to Drezner, have the potential to offer useful and counterintuitive predictions—unlike Marxism and feminism, since theorists working in these traditions “would likely sympathize more with the zombies. To Marxists, the undead symbolize the oppressed proletariat. Unless the zombies were all undead white males, feminists would likely welcome the posthuman smashing of existing patriarchal systems” (Drezner Reference Drezner2011, 17).
DISMISSING DISMISSIVENESS
Feminism is an established theoretical perspective in IR, but Drezner is not alone in his dismissiveness. Theories of International Politics and Zombies examines how well-known theories from international relations might be applied to a war with zombies, making these theories accessible to students who know more about zombie movies than they do about war and international politics when they begin an introductory course. The first several chapters of the book set the stage, providing some background information on zombies and zombie literature and firmly establishing Drezner’s tongue-in-cheek approach to the subject. He then examines a number of different theoretical perspectives, extrapolating the kinds of policy responses that each of them would predict in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Drezner fleshes out, as he puts it, realist, liberal, constructivist, and neo-conservative analyses of how countries would respond to an outbreak of zombies; doing so, he insists, offers “a way to stress test our existing theories of international politics” (2011, 17). All these theories, according to Drezner, have the potential to offer useful and counterintuitive predictions—unlike Marxism and feminism, since theorists working in these traditions “would likely sympathize more with the zombies. To Marxists, the undead symbolize the oppressed proletariat. Unless the zombies were all undead white males, feminists would likely welcome the posthuman smashing of existing patriarchal systems” (Drezner Reference Drezner2011, 17). In one move, Drezner reveals his academically thin understanding of Marxist, critical, and Feminist IR.
Drezner is not the only IR scholar to dismiss feminism. Karen Mingst and Jack Snyder, editors of the textbook Essential Readings in World Politics which is now in its fifth edition, have dropped the representative reading on feminist IR theory from their unit on IR perspectives. In the next section, I discuss what is lost in our understanding of IR when we dismiss feminism.
FEMINIST THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
For feminist theorists, inequalities between men and women are not related to biological differences but stem from ideas about gender, that is, ideas about masculinity and femininity that shape how men and women are expected to think and behave. Gender norms are posited to exercise a subtle but powerful influence on social and political relations, perpetuating power inequalities between men and women by privileging values associated with masculinity and marginalizing those associated with femininity.
In a 1992 article entitled “Man, the State and War: Gendered Perspectives on National Security,” J. Ann Tickner challenges realist theories of international relations, arguing that realists claim to offer a rational, objective assessment of political reality but actually forward a partial theory that ignores the important role and contributions of women. For Tickner, realist theory devalues women and feminist perspectives. She points to gender biases that privilege a particularly aggressive, competitive, and self-interested definition of masculinity and points out that humanity would not survive long if individuals only engaged in the solitary pursuit of narrow self-interest. Moreover, contemporary economic, environmental, and terrorism-related security issues cannot be addressed with military power alone. Tickner outlines a different, feminist approach to national security that redefines power as mutual enablement and emphasizes caring, cooperation, and connectedness over competition, exploitation, and self-aggrandizement.
Feminist theorists also examine the ways in which gendered language and images can be used to cultivate militarized masculinity. Masculine swagger can be used to privilege militarized responses, rejecting diplomatic solutions as weak and effeminate. Men can also be mobilized to participate in war or insurgencies by manipulating their sense of masculinity. In his 2001 book, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa, Joshua Goldstein describes traditional coming of age rituals used by societies across the world to make boys into “real” men by subjecting them to harsh physical ordeals and demanding that they undergo these stoically and bravely.
By contrast, the common identification of women with children serves to cast them both in passive, dependent roles without the ability to act for themselves. When women defy stereotypes that describe them as naturally less aggressive than men, they face special condemnation. As Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry discuss in Mothers, Monsters and Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics, women who act violently in the context of war or armed conflict are treated as anomalies rather than rational actors; violent women may be depicted as “mothers” motivated by their emotional attachment to their family, as “monsters” whose deviance from feminine norms is a sign of pathology, or as “whores” driven to violence by their wanton sexuality (2007, 27–57).
FEMINIST THEORY AND ZOMBIES
Beginning with George Romero’s genre-setting film, Night of the Living Dead (1968), zombies have captured the popular imagination as an apocalyptic threat that threatens to destroy human civilization by transforming all those bitten into zombies themselves. As zombie hordes spread, they destroy the normal functioning of civilization, creating a post-apocalyptic world in which groups of survivors are forced to rebuild a new world. Individualism and self-reliance come to the fore as government and authority lose their effectiveness. Violence in this anarchic world is ubiquitous, suggesting a realist mindset; individuals are forced to abandon cooperation and look out for themselves, using violence to try to ensure their own survival. First and foremost, this involves killing zombies (killing them for good, that is, by destroying their brains). Yet in addition, most of the plotlines in zombie films also include competition between alpha males. For realists, this is understandable; the lack of common authority renders individuals vulnerable and triggers a desperate, violent struggle for power. Feminist theorists point to the overwhelming dominance of men in this conflict and question whether the hyper-masculinized approach to security really leaves people better off.
Feminist theorists point to the overwhelming dominance of men in this conflict and question whether the hyper-masculinized approach to security really leaves people better off.
The next sections of the paper provide examples of the ways in which zombie films can be used to illustrate feminist themes and critiques. Instructors could certainly substitute other popular films or books to make similar points, but the two analyzed here are chosen because they are the ones that Drezner discusses the most. Footnote 2 Instructors should review whichever films they choose ahead of time and select a few critical scenes to show in class. Instructors may want to distribute several discussion questions for students to answer as they watch these scenes so that they remain actively engaged rather than merely passive viewers; writing answers to discussion questions during the film also helps facilitate a more structured discussion afterwards (Sunderland et al. Reference Sunderland, Rothermel and Lusk2009).
“They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara”: Identifying Stereotypical Ideas about Masculinity and Femininity in Night of the Living Dead
In Night of the Living Dead, a small group of survivors takes refuge in a farm house from a mysterious epidemic of zombies. Most of the film revolves around the bickering among the male survivors, who turn on each other, contributing to their ultimate demise. The female characters are all relegated to subordinate roles, whether as a helpless victim in need of protection or a clingy girlfriend. Once in the safety of the house, Barbara becomes virtually catatonic, sitting paralyzed on the living room sofa while the capable male hero, Ben, acts to board up the house. Barbara snaps out of her trance long enough to hysterically plead with Ben to rescue her brother but Ben puts an end to her irrational outburst by hitting her, causing her to faint (rendering her useless but out of the way). The two other female characters in the film, Helen and Judy, preoccupy themselves with the domestic task of caring for Helen’s sick daughter, Karen. Although Helen complains about her irritable husband, Harry, she ultimately agrees to go along with his decisions as head of the family.
Throughout the film, women are generally a kind of backdrop to the more capable men. When Tom pleads with Ben and Harry to stop fighting, he tells them “we’d all be a lot better if all three of us were working together,” clearly signaling that the women were not of any use (Harper Reference Harper2003). This corresponds to feminist criticisms that men are typically depicted as independent, autonomous actors whereas women are condemned to inferiority by their association with passivity, irrationality, and emotional vulnerability (Waller 1986).
Gender analysis of key scenes from Night of the Living Dead shows how stereotypes of women are used to justify their exclusion from decision making roles and positions of power. Students may bring in examples of their own from other zombie films, books, television series or video games. For example, Max Brooks’ (2007) popular zombie book World War Z is notable for the relative lack of female characters, who represent only five of the forty-two speakers profiled and who conform to common gender stereotypes. To the extent that zombie stories offer narratives about how ordinary people respond to real-world crises, the focus on male experiences reinforces the perception that men are better suited to leading in crises and in politics more generally.
“I’d Have Made You All Coffee and Breakfast”: The Dangers of a Masculinized Approach and Value of a Gender-Sensitive Approach
In George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), a shopping mall becomes a refuge and battleground for four survivors who exterminate the zombies and claim the mall for themselves. Their shoppers’ paradise is interrupted, however, by a gang of bikers who seek to take over the mall. Selfishness ultimately leads to destruction as Stephen refuses to surrender the mall to marauding bikers and a bloodbath—literally—ensues. The danger of overly aggressive, hyperbolically macho behavior is foreshadowed by Roger, whose recklessness during the initial takeover of the mall causes him to be bitten.
Francine, the heroine, offers a different approach. While she does help defend and secure the mall, she does not join the men in obliterating the zombies. With the sound of gunfire in the background, Fran sits cross-legged gazing through a clear glass store window at a young zombie on the other side—a response that would have been unthinkable for the male characters (Harper Reference Harper2003). She demonstrates typical feminine virtues of charity and sympathy, taking care of Roger.
Although Fran is a highly competent professional, she spends much of the film isolated from the men who consider her something of a liability and expect her to assume the domestic role of cooking for them. She resents this at first, sarcastically commenting, “I’d have made you all coffee and breakfast but I guess I don’t have my pots and pans.” Later in the film, however, Fran actually does fall into this domestic role, conforming to expectations. Yet even here, Fran sticks to a more communitarian approach, recognizing the importance of social relations and cooperation. In the end, this proves to be a better strategy for survival than the individualist approach based on aggression and competition for dominance.
Gender analysis of key scenes from Dawn of the Dead allows students to interrogate whether dominant masculine approaches to security actually provide more protection. According to the realist view of security, masculine military forces protect and secure members from foreign threats. Feminist theorists, however, question common conceptions of the state as a strong, paternal force that serves to protect people from harm. They raise doubts whether military forces really work to ensure the safety of citizens and contend that war and intervention may actually leave women and marginalized groups vulnerable rather than protected, less rather than more secure. This gives rise to an alternative feminist agenda that suggests alternatives to the status quo based on equality and mutual enablement.
Gender analysis of key scenes from Dawn of the Dead allows students to interrogate whether dominant masculine approaches to security actually provide more protection.
CONCLUSION
This article demonstrates how to use feminist analysis of Zombie movies to teach feminist theories on international relations and how to use these to critically engage with other IR theories.
By suggesting how instructors can incorporate an additional unit on feminism into their courses on international relations, this article offers a way for instructors to prompt students to consider the type of questions that feminists ask: Where are the women? How do ideas about gender serve to exclude women and their perspectives? How would feminist approaches to issues such as security differ from traditionally masculine approaches?
Drezner defends his focus on zombies by noting that interest in zombies is not only part of the cultural zeitgeist but also a reflection of contemporary concerns over terrorism, medical epidemics and mob rule (2011). As such, it is appropriate to consider with students what feminist theories of international politics have to say about what would happen if the dead began to rise from the grave and feast upon the living, not only in order to clarify important elements of feminist IR theory but also to foster an appreciation for feminist perspectives on important global issues.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/S1049096516000974.
